As part of Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, open until 31 October 2021, THISS x ìssí present Resilient Monument, in the Cities section of the exhibition.
THISS is a young multidisciplinary architecture practice, with a focus on landscape, craftsmanship and collaboration. Working in close partnership with clients, who share the same sense of curious and explorative outlook, the design team at THISS place an emphasis on both dialogue and communication as a starting point for projects.
Tamsin Hanke previously lived in Iceland working for a local landscape-driven design practice focusing on projects in the tourist and hospitality sectors (when not skiing across frozen Arctic landscapes). She is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Sash Scott is a registered ARB Architect and Designer. He has extensive experience in the arts, commercial and private residential sectors. Whilst Sash has engaged and participated with geographically marginal communities in Japan, Russia and across the Middle East to explore the relationship between nature and the built environment. Landscape underpins all aspects of the studio.
ìssí is an interdisciplinary London-based artist trained in architecture whose work questions cultural separation by architectural re-imaginations. The work dwells on the narratives of liminality, negotiation and disobedience; tracing these narratives from the field of cultural studies – crossing race – and into the territory of architecture. Lost to interpretation, his work asks to be misinterpreted, to fabricate questioning and provoking discovers of new readings that unsettle our ‘normal’ cultural and racial binaries.
Monuments traditionally aggrandise historical figures to anchor a particular view on history in our collective imagination. Through the fabrication of the Resilient Monument, THISS explores ideas of materiality, choosing to define resilience as impermanent, incremental, organic, and optimistic. The new monument is not a new normal; it must remain visible and vigilant. It must rot and be cared for as an affirmation of the values it is given by those who make it.
The 2021 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism debuted on 16 September with a series of exhibitions, events and conferences that reflect on the future of urban environments and the architectural and planning strategies that foster resilience. Titled “CROSSROADS, Building the Resilient City”, the third edition of SBAU curated by architect Dominique Perrault attempts to assert the importance of interactions and “cross-fertilization of expertise and approaches” to respond to the complexities that shape the built environment, all read through the timely issue of resiliency.
